“Beware Conspiracy Theorists?” No – Beware Those Who Are Part of the Unspeakable!

Media personality Michael Smerconish in his Op-ed in today’s Denver Post, advises one and all (based on his header) to ”Beware Conspiracy Theorists”. We are supposed to be the bane of national existence, sowing paranoia with our every blog post, and hey – we are little different from the generic nuts who fret over UN helicopters and FEMA concentration camps. In this way, lumped in with whackjobs, all manner of conspiracies are instantly consigned to the dumpster of history.

But based on accumulated documents, I choose to believe something different: That REAL conspiracies DO exist and have occurred, and hiding them doesn’t help the citizens or the nation. Author Michael Parenti (The Dirty Truth) makes no bones about the fact that “most people suffer from conspiracy phobia” and “they treat anyone who investigates conspiracy as a conspiracy buff or oddball”. He also has a problem with the term “conspiracy theory” since it permits the critics and skeptics to have their intellectual cake and eat it. If the claimed conspiracy hasn’t been validated to their satisfaction, it’s merely a theory (which they erroneously equate with speculation), but if it was validated, as in Watergate, then ‘Voila!’ it’s no longer theory but an actuality! But this is essential nonsense. As Parenti observes, it means that “conspiracy can never be proven and if proven it can’t be conspiracy”.

But we know that real, bona fide conspiracies have indeed occurred and been validated. In the Watergate conspiracy, Nixon and his cronies virtually handed the evidence to investigating committees and prosecutors on a 'silver platter' since they’d taped everything! Every word and every plan or scheme was recorded, from targeting McGovern supporters using the IRS, to illegal wiretaps of those on the “enemies' list” to breaking and entering into Daniel Ellsberg’s place In the BCCI conspiracy, the machinations of a criminal bank were almost kept hidden as tens of thousands lost their money around the world and the bank funded terrorist activities. In the Iran –Contra conspiracy, Reaganites sold Israeli Hawk and TOW missiles to Iran and funneled the money from sales into Nicaragua to support the Rightist “Contras’. In the 'Operation Northwoods' conspiracy, the plot was exposed before a clique of U.S. generals could unleash terror attacks on Americans and blame Castro, to start a war in 1962.

So why not also a conspiracy to murder a popular President? Especially when that President altered his stance from being a cold-warrior to a leader committed to peace – to the extent of banning nuclear weapons tests and disciplining run amuck generals who wanted to launch a nuclear war. But as author James Douglass has noted ( JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters), too many in the media and in government have sought to protect those who killed Kennedy and prevent the truth from disclosure. .

In Douglass’ words:.

“Our collective denial of the obvious, in the setting up of Oswald and his transparent silencing by Ruby, made possible the Dallas cover-up. The success of the cover-up was the indispensable foundation for the murders of Malcolm X, Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy by the same forces at work in our government – and ourselves:

Hope for change in the world was targeted and killed four times over. The cover-up of all four murders, each leading into the next, was based – first of all –on denial. Not the government’s but our own- and the unspeakable was not far away.” .

Nevertheless, it appears those like Michael Smerconish are quite happy to go on killing hope for change in the world multiple times over, as they seek to dissuade the citizen from examining the facts of the conspiracy behind the Kennedy assassination. Smerconish begins his sarcastic attack by singling out Jesse Ventura’s book: They Killed Our President: 63 Reasons to Believe There Was A Conspiracy to Assassinate JFK. So Smerconish gets Ventura in an interview and asks the question: “Who is ‘they’?” Ventura, honest as he is, responds that he doesn’t know. The ‘they’ employed was generic, and could apply to any of the conceivable forces – or all – that had it in for Kennedy, but especially his national security state. Besides, Ventura could have told Smerconish if he really knew who ‘they’ were he likely wouldn’t be alive to say so! As per Richard Charnin’s excellent graphical proof of conspiracy based on the death of witnesses at the times of the two main investigations, see. e.g.

http://richardcharnin.wordpress.com/2013/10/14/jfk-witness-deaths-graphical-proof-of-a-conspiracy/

So really, Smerky, if ANYONE did know who ‘they’ were, they are long since dead and buried. Smerconish then goes on to cite the infamous Katzenbach memo – which read in its intro and first section:

”"It is important that all facts surrounding President Kennedy's assassination be made public in a way which will satisfy people in the United States and abroad that all the facts have been told and that a statement to this effect be made now.

1. The public must be satisfied that Oswald was the assassin, that he did not have confederates who are still at large; and that the evidence was such that he would have been convicted at trial.

He spuriously claims that (1) alone “sounds ominous” but when the whole is taken in context, not so much! Katzenbach was merely “anticipating that 50 years later guys like Ventura would seek to prosper by spinning yarns”, but fails to observe that Katzenbach himself never seriously believed anyone would challenge the words, or Warren Report in a serious way since LBJ had sealed all the records at least until 2037 when most of those who care would likely have died. It was only the passage of the 'JFK Records Act' in 1992 that averted this national travesty!

So, to Smerconish's arguments, I reply: Codswallop! To the critical thinker, the above enumerated first point of the memo provides enough evidence to disclose the true purpose of any ''official' investigation: to arrive at a preconceived and pre-accepted conclusion, that was politically and socially expedient. This was as opposed to the outcome of an open-ended, genuine investigation. This also goes under the rubric of a fundamental logical no-no called: 'Affirming the consequent' - i.e. affirming ab initio that which you need to prove. Taking the shortcut - avoiding the process, more: ensuring the outcome of the process blends with one's own 'truth'. A much more acceptable version for public consumption or to put it in blunt terms: expeditious political PR.

Smerconish ends his whiff effort at smacking “conspiracy theorists” in the JFK case by appealing to Arlen Specter, who he avers was “so passionate for the truth about the Warren Commission that he intended to maintain an active speaking schedule during the 50th anniversary year – to defend his conclusions from years ago.” We shall miss the voice of the “passionate” Mr. Specter, but it’s perhaps better he isn’t adding to all the existing noise and deception ….or the unspeakable…especially with that insane “magic bullet” fairy tale he fabricated. As I showed in my previous post (on Joe Klein's BS), it was Specter's own yarn that propelled the Warrenites to lie, debase and distort the evidence to find for one lone gunman – including to do with the autopsy – and I cited examples in that last post and in the one taking Larry Sabato to task.

I have not read Ventura’s book, I admit. He may be closer to the truth or not. But I again recommend to all serious readers, who really want to know why Kennedy was killed, to get hold of James Douglass’ book and make it your best friend for the next month. In that way, you will assure you won’t be part of the unspeakable.

Have Americans - Especially Their Government - Learned Anything From 9/11?

“Americans are apt to scoff at the idea that a military coup in the U.S, as so often happens in Latin American countries, could ever replace our government. But that is an idea that has grounds for consideration.”  Lee Harvey Oswald, from his July 27, 1963 talk given at  The Jesuit House of Studies, Spring Hill College, Mobile AL.

“Of all the enemies to public liberty, war is perhaps the most to be dreaded because it comprises the germ of every other. As the parent of armies, war encourages debts and taxes, the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few”-        James Madison

Is it possible that one of the things that may have signed Lee Oswald's death warrant - was his little known talk at the Jesuit House of Studies at Spring Hill College, Mobile? James Douglass in his stirring book, JFK and the Unspeakable, certainly put that out there to consider (p. 331) though he also does acknowledge that Lee may never have actually verbalized outwardly the content in his notes. But does it matter? If indeed the CIA was in the process of sheepdipping him, as noted by John Newman ('Oswald and the CIA') then whether he actually said the key words may be immaterial. He had disclosed himself as a threat that had to be eliminated - preferably after his arrest for a murder he didn't commit.

This is a critical observation because many deep politics observers believe that the country rapidly mutated into a military -security state in the wake of Kennedy's assassination. (For a plausible scenario of how it could have transpired via conspiracy, rent or buy the excellent 1973 movie, Executive Action.)


In his American University speech, JFK noted:

“Our primary long-range interest is general and complete disarmament- designed to take place by stages, permitting parallel political developments to build the new institutions of peace which would take the place of arms”.


This could not have pleased the warmongers, especially among his Joint Chiefs - who had already been appalled at his failure to bomb and invade Cuba during the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis some eight months earlier.

Anyway, the point of this post is that the U.S. not only emerged as a hyper-militant state (empire)  after Kennedy's death, aggressively launching an illegal war in Vietnam - but a national security state as well. The two in concert incepted a toxic policy paranoia that has generated blowback over more than three decades.  In the case of Vietnam, the security state propelled LBJ's retraction of  JFK's National Security Memorandum 263 ( which would have evacuated all personnel). Worse, LBJ  used a security -state developed bogus ploy:  the alleged North Vietnamese firing on the Maddox and Turner Joy in Aug, 1964 to justify a full scale war which led to 58,000 Americans killed.  Vietnam also launched the weasel ploy of  congress "authorizing" further military actions - when actual wars would have been declared, as per the Constitution. All of this in concert, together with how and where the U.S. has stuck its nose in other nations' business (when Kennedy rejected any 'Pax Americana') makes one wonder if American leaders even grasp the concept of 'blowback'.

In a September 13, 2001 interview with the magazine In These Times, Chalmers Johnson (the author of ‘Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire’) was said to “have seen the September 11 catastrophe coming”.  Johnson’s 2000 book argued that U.S. interventionist foreign policy and military overextension would lead to unintended and unpredictable consequences. A year later, his warning seemed eerily prescient. Though JFK wasn’t so prescient in a specific context, his American University Pax Americana  speech, he generically prefigured the horrific consequences if the U.S. insisted on being the policeman of the world, enforcing peace with American weapons of war.    Also, holding the rest of the world up to standards it didn't follow itself!

This speech probably set the foundation for Kennedy’s plan (under NSAM-263) to pull out of Vietnam (after the 1964 elections,  when political repercussions would be minimal). He could likely see that if, indeed, the U.S. remained in Vietnam, the perils of a much wider war, along with consolidation of the military-industrial-oil complex,  would be unavoidable.


Back to Chalmers Johnson and some of the answers to questions he gave in his In These Times interview:

Q1. Is what happened on September 11 an example of blowback?


Of course it is. That's exactly what my book was written for: It was a warning to my fellow Americans, a year ago, that our foreign policy was going to produce something like this. It's important to stress, contrary to what people in Washington and the media are saying, that this was not an attack on the United States: This was an attack on American foreign policy. It was an example of the strategies of the weak against the overwhelmingly powerful.


Q2. Osama bin Laden has been named the primary suspect in these attacks. In the first chapter of Blowback, you talk about earlier American attacks on Osama bin Laden as an example of "a spiral of destructive behavior."


I heard Sen. John McCain say this morning that the people of Afghanistan have nothing to worry about if they would just turn over Osama bin Laden and cooperate with us. ... Where was he during the '80s, when we and the Soviet Union were destroying Afghanistan? Our efforts were to hire people like bin Laden to come from Saudi Arabia and help give the Soviet Union a Vietnam-like experience.


Don't get me wrong. Everyone understands that the people of New York, the people of Washington, the people on the airplanes were innocent bystanders—and that is the nature of this kind of warfare. Our Department of Defense invented the phrase "collateral damage" to deal with the dead Iraqis and the dead Serbs as a result of our bombings of their countries. ... I know it sounds cruel to say, but the people of New York were collateral damage of American foreign policy. It was inevitable that something like this would come back.
 
Q.3 You implied that this type of terrorist warfare seems to be the warfare of the future. I assume that you would expect to see more?


No nation can hope to beat the United States on American terms. Therefore you must devise a strategy that essentially makes our overwhelming military capability worthless. I think they have managed to do so.

People in Washington are continually talking about declaring war—but declaring war on whom? They don't know. If they are going to go out and attack Afghanistan, it will simply produce a further cycle of blowback and retaliation. In the meantime, it will also even further inflame the entire Middle East.


Q.4 If not military force, then what could be effective against this type of terrorist warfare?

What we need to find out is: what are we doing that is provoking this? Is there any flexibility in our policy? Couldn't we alter our policies somewhat? Couldn't we make it our business to try to stay out of fratricidal and hate-laden conflicts? And then, to the extent that we are still the victim of terrorism (which we always will be) then we need a much greater analytic effort to defend ourselves, and that should not be impossible to craft.

Clearly, what happened on September 11 was an almost catastrophic failure of intelligence by extremely expensive agencies that do not do anything. And so far, the American reaction seems to be to target the Bill of Rights more than anything else. Retaliation is not the answer. It hasn't worked for Israel it has only exacerbated the situation. It won't work for us.


Q.5 Is it possible that blowback may take place internally as well as externally?


The greatest danger we have now is militarism in America. We have this huge, overpowering, unbelievably expensive military establishment. It is something from the days of Washington's farewell address to Eisenhower's invention of the phrase "military-industrial complex" that seasoned U.S. leaders have warned against—the threat of a huge military establishment to the liberty of our citizens.

I fear that from this we are going to get even more militarism. That is, more and more functions—including domestic police functions—will be transferred from civilian institutions to the military, and the military will have ever greater authority in our society. We know how that will end based on history, especially of the Roman and British Empires. We're talking here about military overstretch, and the attendant weaknesses of the imperial structure (including continuous financing) that will ultimately lead to total collapse.
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Of course, Johnson’s prediction that we’re going to “get even more militarism” has come to pass, what with the pre-emptive invasion of Iraq (violating Article VI of the Nuremberg laws) and now the drums beating ever louder for an attack on Syria - which will really let loose the dogs of blowback if Chalmers Johnson's answers are to be believed - and I do believe them whole heartedly.

Fortunately, the Russians and Vladimir Putin have proposed a way out of the Syria mess, which requires the Syrian regime to declare all stockpiles of chemical weapons, and ultimately subject them to capture or destruction. There would then be a basis for UN inspectors to get on the ground in Syria and do assays and inspections. Of course, this will take time and so the Amerikkan Empire purveyors and blowback inceptors are already huffing and puffing that "it's all a ploy". This because Russia retracted a resolution regarding inspections yesterday. But what none of the pundits said, except Chris Hayes, is that the Russians (rightfully) want NO resolutions done with a U.S. "gun" pointed to anyone's head, whether Russia's or Syria's. Do the resolution, sure, but not under threat that if such and such markers aren't met and 'x' hoops aren't jumped through in 'y' time, an attack will ensue,

The question then is have American leaders learned the lessons of blowback from their policies, which led directly to 9/11? (In that case the establishment of American bases in Saudi Arabia, left from the Gulf War.))

The answer will hinge on what we see Obama and his bunch do now, given the Russian Syrian proposal. Wifey - who watched his speech- told me he was accepting of the deal, and very humble. He actually acknowledged that the U.S. "cannot be the policeman of the world."  This at least discloses Obama might have partially learned the lessons of 9/11 but I need to see more than words. I want to see a firm leash put on the military dogs preventing them from being unleashed after Assad or Syria, if certain artificial time limits or conditions aren't met. (And again, bear in mind I already made the case the U.S. has no moral authority to be bossing around anyone, "punishing" or anything else, e.g. http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2013/08/the-us-lacks-moral-authority-to-launch.html

Will we see more 9/11s? Will we see an increased consolidation of the military -surveillance state even beyond what exists now, which as David Lindorff put it in one blog - surpasses even the excesses depicted in Orwell's '1984'?

That depends on how this Syrian crisis plays out.

The whole world is watching, and all American citizens ought to stay tuned as well!

See also: http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/dave-lindorff/51567/a-people-s-victory-over-syrian-attack-plan-in-historic-first-american-empire-is-blocked-at-the-starti

JFK and the National Security State (1)

A mere day before the 12th anniversary of 9/11, and knowing what we do now about how the national security state expanded malignantly in its wake (including a $50 plus billion a year 'black budget'), it is instructive to see how JFK confronted the security state in his own time.

Even as we’ve learned (2 days ago)  that Obama and his  administration secretly won permission from a surveillance court (in 2011)  to reverse restrictions on the National Security Agency’s use of intercepted phone calls and e-mails, permitting the agency to search deliberately for Americans’ communications in its massive databases(according to gov’t officials and recently declassified material.)  one wonders what JFK would have done 50 years or more ago.


The answer is that JFK wouldn’t have done it! Indeed he harbored a deep distrust of the national security state since being betrayed by it (namely the CIA branch)  in the Bay of Pigs fiasco. Little known by Americans, “Operation Zapata” (aka 'The Cuba Project') was actually initiated and developed during the Eisenhower administration and pushed on Kennedy. (Telling him it was in “the national security interest” to do it). Awed by the conviction of an elderly president with 8 years in the Oval office, while he himself was a new-be, JFK took Ike at his word and paid the price.


Most of this didn’t come to light until the discovery of an internal CIA Report on the “Cuba Project”, which had been kept hidden for over 35 years.  The results were released under ‘The Bay of Pigs Declassified’.  It was actually based on the agency’s own internal audit and assessment of its behavior in respect of the event.

According to the declassified report, the Agency committed at least four extremely serious mistakes:

 

i)                Failure to subject the project, especially in its latter, frenzied stages to a cold and objective appraisal by the best talent available before submitting the final plan to Kennedy

 

ii)              Failure to advise the President, at an appropriate time, that the mission’s success had become dubious- and to recommend the operation therefore be canceled.

 

iii)            Failure to recognize the project had become overt and that the military effort had become too large to be handled by the Agency alone

iv)             Failure to reduce successive project plans (dating back to 1959) to formal papers and to leave copies with the President and his advisors, to request specific written approval, confirmation thereof.

The section goes on to note (p. 53):

 

“The timely and objective scrutiny of the operation in the months before the invasion – including study of all available intelligence- would have demonstrated to Agency officials that the clandestine paramilitary preparations had almost totally failed and there was no responsive underground Cuban force ready to ally with the invaders.”

 

The commentary is even more critical of the CIA after noting (ibid.) that the United states Intelligence Board, the Office of National Estimates, and Office of Current Intelligence all provided clear warning that a careful reappraisal was needed.

 

RE: Cancellation (p. 55):

“Cancellation would have been embarrassing. The Brigade could not have been held any longer in ready status, probably not held any longer at all. Further, its members would have spread their disappointment far and wide. Because of multiple security leaks in the huge operation, the world already knew about the preparations, and the Government’s and nation’s embarrassment would have been public”

 

Re: The Choice (ibid.)

 

“The choice was between retreat without honor and a gamble between ignominious defeat and dubious victory. The Agency chose to gamble, at rapidly decreasing odds.”

The consensus position of the Archivists is that JFK was misled by the Agency’s hubris and incompetence. Depending on the CIA for guidance as to intelligence about this operation – in preparation for more than two years-  the Agency blew it and big time. JFK took the blame, yes, but the CIA ultimately was responsible for not advising cancellation when they knew the near zero chances of success, had the opportunity to do so.

As per a Baltimore Sun piece on the above named Report findings ('Internal Probe Blamed Bay of Pigs Fiasco on CIA', p. 6A, Feb. 22, 1998), it was noted:

"The 150-page report, released after sitting in the CIA Director's safe for nearly three decades, blames the disastrous attempt to oust Fidel Castro not on President John F. Kennedy's failure to call airstrikes, but on the agency itself."


"The CIA's ignorance, incompetence, and arrogance toward the 1,400 exiles it trained and equipped to mount the invasion was responsible for the fiasco, said the report, obtained by the Associated Press yesterday."

"The document criticized almost every aspect of the CIA's handling of the invasion: misinforming Kennedy administration officials, planning poorly, using faulty intelligence and conducting an overt military operation beyond 'agency responsibility as well as agency capability'."

In the wake of the fiasco, and learning how badly he’d been played. JFK fired Allen Dulles – the then CIA Director after the Bay of Pigs- and asserted his willingness to “smash the CIA into a thousand pieces and scatter it to the winds.” He also fired Charles Cabell, the deputy CIA director at the time and unwittingly laid the basis for the national security state to act against him.

Dulles was awarded a prime seat on LBJ's "Warren Commission" and essentially able to pre-vet and release only the information he deemed necessary.  Worse, his henchmen were (years later) disclosed rifling through the materials of the only real gov't branch to investigate the assassination - the HSCA in 1978. The most infamous case involved a spook named Regis Blahut, caught red-handed with some photographs he obviously intended to pilfer or alter. (See The Last Investigation,  by Gaeton Fonzi)

Meanwhile, Charles Cabell's brother, Earl, was the then mayor of Dallas. What better position to occupy to set up a motorcade route meandering through the concrete canyon of Dealey Plaza - enabling a classic triangulation scenario for assassination?

Next: How JFK learned he was no longer in control of the government.

Why Do The War Mongers Want to 'Kill' Manning The Millennial Messenger?

Nazi defendants wait to be tried at Nuremberg. Why haven’t the Bushie terrorists who launched the unprovoked Iraq War met the same fate – as opposed to Pfc. Bradley Manning?

“A nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people. “ - John Fitzgerald Kennedy


In an earlier blog I harped on the pathetic Milliennial Abby Huntsman who appeared on Bill Maher's REAL TIME show woefully unprepared and basically giving a good emulation of a moron. I also added that I didn't believe all Millennials fit this mold. Some undoubtedly had courage - lots of it- and were invested in the truth because they grasped this was what democracy was all about. This is also why Pfc. Bradley Manning, a Millennial (but not to be confused with Abby Huntsman) merits commendations for seeking to help his fellow citizens out as opposed to being kept in the dark - regarding the "wars" raging in their name.

Manning, as readers may know, is being tried on trumped up charges of "treason" and "aiding the enemy" which is about the biggest laugh there is given the fact Manning has released no more critical files than Beltway  Über hack Bob Woodward. As blogger-columnist Glenn Greenwald has pointed out  : "Let’s apply the government's theory in the Manning case to one of the most revered journalists in Washington: Bob Woodward, who has become one of America’s richest reporters, if not the richest, by obtaining and publishing classified information far more sensitive than anything WikiLeaks has ever published ". 

Greenwald also noted, parallel to the Army prosecutor's claim in the Manning case, that Osama Bin Laden was "one of Woodward's most enthusiastic readers."  But then Woodward is the darling of the Beltway's Neoliberal hacks and corporate -bankster warmongers so can't be touched. Not like a little 26-year old Millennial whose only shroud of protection is democracy or democratic principles. You remember those?

For clarity one may also invoke the proposition put forward earlier by blogger Amy Davidson to the effect that: "If it is aiding the enemy 'to expose war crimes committed by American forces or lies told by the American government,' then in reality 'who is aiding the enemy' -- the whistleblower or the perpetrators themselves?” The answer seems fairly obvious if one isn't brain dead.


When the deceptive operation of the warfare state can’t stand the light of day, truth-tellers are a constant threat and the powers-that-be will have a yen to squelch them. Thus, culpability must stay turned on its head. So now I can get this straight: Bushie vermin who launched a pre-emptive war (against Iraq) violating the war crimes article (VI) of the Nuremberg Laws walk away scot free while Manning gets prosecuted to the hilt? WTF is going on here? Has this nation totally lost its mind, moorings, moral ballast?

Truth be told Manning’s release of so-called classified files to do with clear criminal war crimes committed in Iraq, Afghanistan by U.S. troops was no worse than Daniel Ellsberg’'s release of the Pentagon Papers  and the hidden rot and abominations underscoring the Vietnam War. Those Ellsberg revelations set a moral tone about what a morally responsible nation does, as opposed to kowtowing to a crazed military culture that is all about waging perma-war. JFK himself warned in his June 4, 1963 speech at American University about the dangers of “Pax Americana” – that is, imposing an American version of peace on the world using American weapons of war.  Long before JFK's words, President John Quincy Adams  warned that America "goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy". Somehow that message has been lost as we're a nation burdened by military overstretch - the same syndrome that brought down Rome.

JFK  further understood that the war state also had to be controlled to secure any kind of future for ourselves and our offspring or it would control us and suck up everything of value.  This is why he did several notable things, including: signing the August, 1963 Nuclear Test Ban treaty, and initiating rapprochement with Castro’s Cuba in early 1963 as well as softening positions toward the then Soviet Union (mostly done with Nikita Khruschchev behind the scenes.)


Of course, the crazed warmongers – led by Gen. Curtis LeMay- weren’t able to handle this, so they saw to it Kennedy met an untimely demise. The violent head shot in the center of a major American city (Dallas) sending Kennedy’s bloody brains spattering all over Elm Street in Dealey Plaza sent a message to all future presidents to heave to, obey the war state – or suffer similar consequences. This is why all American presidents since Kennedy have demonstrated cowardly, compromised behavior that has enabled war mongering and virulent Pax Americana – whether Reagan in his war on the Sandinistas in Nicaragua, or Clinton in his cruise missile attack on a Sudanese pharmaceutical factory producing anti-malaria drugs (believed at the time to be an al Qaeda hangout) to Bush Jr. invading Iraq on false pretenses causing the deaths of 600,000 Iraqis, to Obama and his drone killings as well as continuing a U.S. presence in Afghanistan that is only causing more alienation and blowback.


While Obama promised transparency on being elected, he has gone after whistle blowers with ferocity, as well as clamping down on files with directed over-classification. One major example has to do with the JFK assassination files which the National Archives now has refused to release in this 50th anniversary year. Key among those files are the CIA activities of agent George Joannides – suspected in manipulating Lee Oswald to be the patsy. If we can’t see the files, how are we to ever assess the final truth? (See also: http://www.brane-space.blogspot.com/2012/06/national-archives-to-jfk-file-seekers.html )


But maybe we can't have the final truth because for one thing it would mean the U.S. gov’t finally admitting after 50 years that its relentless defense of the Warren Commission was all wrong.  Given the same government likely had major roles in altering files (as documented by John Newman in his 'Oswald and the CIA') as well as suppressing other evidence or altering it, why would they be invested in the truth now?


In terms of kowtowing to the military-industrial spy state many of us are still prepared to give Obama the benefit of the doubt- that he accedes to the secrecy wishes of the mammoth military state (including prosecuting Bradley Manning to the hilt) because of the fear of experiencing Kennedy’s end. Kennedy crossed the MIC with his National Security Action memorandum 263 to pull all personnel out of Vietnam by 1965, and look what happened to him. Perhaps Obama fears a similar end if he courageously ceases all drone strikes and pulls immediately out of Afghanistan – which would be no more detrimental than if we leave in another year and a half. At least if this is the case one can assuage doubts that a former constitutional law professor would deliberately prosecute a leaker and ignore the real war criminals – most of whom ought to have been hung by now.

---------------
Manning is charged with crimes for sending hundreds of thousands of classified files, documents and videos, including the "Collateral Murder" video, the "Iraq War Logs," the "Afghan War Logs" and State Department cables to Wikileaks. Many of the things he transmitted contain evidence of war crimes.  The "Collateral Murder" video depicts a US Apache attack helicopter killing 12 civilians and wounding two children on the ground in Baghdad in 2007. The helicopter then fired on and killed the people trying to rescue the wounded. Finally, a US tank drove over one of the bodies, cutting the man in half. These acts constitute three separate war crimes.

Manning fulfilled his legal duty to report war crimes. He complied with his legal duty to obey lawful orders but also his legal duty to disobey unlawful orders. He also complied with Nuremburg Article VI to report war crimes, something the Nazis were tried for in Nuremburg (see photo).

Section 499 of the Army Field Manual states, "Every violation of the law of war is a war crime." The law of war is contained in the Geneva Conventions.

But perhaps, as in the case of the Senate post-hoc altering the wiretap surveillance laws to conform with lawlessness, after the Bushies broke them, we are no longer a nation of laws or morality. In that case Bradley Manning has not much to look forward to, other than a life sentence.

Why Don't More Americans Call Themselves Liberals: Ans. Too Many Phoney Ones!

"For the Democratic Party is not a collection of diverse interests brought together only to win elections. We are united instead by a common history and heritage--by a respect for the deeds of the past and a recognition of the needs of the future "- John F. Kenendy


Rachel Maddow presented some astounding facts a week ago, on her show. The theme was that despite the fact Repukes portray the U.S. as a “center right nation", poll after poll discloses Americans are foursquare for LIBERAL programs. 82% do not want any cuts to Social Security and 74% demand no cuts to Medicare. 94% are also in favor of universal gun checks. So why, despite polling for unabashed liberal positions or programs do only 22% of Americans regard themselves as liberals.

One worthy theory is that  of Joel Kotkin, a fellow in urban design at Chapman University, who argues in similar terms to what I have (in previous blogs) regarding the infection of the Democratic Party by cancerous Neoliberalism, or shameless pro-Business dominance. Kotkin argues that the Democratic Party and the left are now dominated by what he calls “gentry progressives”: largely white, well-educated, culturally liberal urbanites. (Or analogous to what we who attend football games refer to as the ‘brie and wine’ crowd, who sit in their temp. controlled little domes and schmooz while we in the lower seats grab some brats and beer and sit in the elements!)

In an essay published by Forbes  a month after Obama’s decisive re-election, Kotkin wrote:

“The now triumphant urban gentry have their townhouses and high-rise lofts, but the service workers who do their dirty work have to log their way by bus or car from the vast American banlieues, either in peripheral parts of the city (think of Brooklyn’s impoverished fringes) or the poorer close-in suburbs. This progressive economy works for the well-placed academics, the trustfunders and hedge funders, but produces little opportunity for a better life for the vast majority.”

BINGO!

Kotkin makes the additional case that the Obama coalition which united well-educated, often upscale liberals, with such struggling, often disadvantaged constituencies as single women, racial and ethnic minorities, and the young is fragile at best:


“The class issue so cleverly exploited by the president in the election could prove the potential Achilles heel of today’s gentry progressivism. The Obama-Bernanke economy has done little to reverse the relative decline of the middle and working class, whose share of national income has fallen to record lows. If you don’t work for venture-backed tech firms, coddled, money-for-nearly-free Wall Street or for the government, your income and standard of living has probably declined since the middle of the last decade.”

The fragility of temporary, expedient political coalitions, as opposed to a party grounding itself in firm principles, may be why JFK warned against them in one of his most famous and stirring quotes:

"For the Democratic Party is not a collection of diverse interests brought together only to win elections. We are united instead by a common history and heritage--by a respect for the deeds of the past and a recognition of the needs of the future"  

Sadly, the New Dems seem to have forgotten that message, and have left their respect for the deeds of the past behind to build on the quicksand of expediency and temporary coalitions. This is what Kennedy was warning against, and instead insisted the party needed a committment to its common history and heritage - which clearly is distinct from the Reeps. This common history thereby demands REAL progressives (aka bona fide Liberals, as opposed to Neoliberals)  embrace the principles of the New Deal and NOT put Social Security up for grabs as the wine and brie faction are wont to do.  

Yet all these Gentrified Libs (who are really Neoliberal - free market worshipping freaks) consider “Entitlement reform”  a necessity and share Beltway Hack Bob Woodward’s deformed meme, expressed in his recent book, The Price of Politics’, as: 

"Unsustainable entitlement spending on Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security as highlighted by Republican House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan and familiar to all informed politicians and economists....has been left largely unaddressed."

Thus, feeding the fears of the landed gentry libs that "costs are now exploding"  according to the immutable logic of demographic and actuarial facts.    No surprise then that this debased progressive "elite " now fancies it can disregard the distributive consequences of their  New Deal- 1960s forbears. A perfect example of these brie and wine degenerates:   calling for gradual reduction in Social Security benefits – either by raising the retirement age or switching to a “chained” Consumer Price Index (a revised inflation index which cuts government spending by reducing annual cost of living adjustments.  

Who would be most affected? Those in the bottom quntile of the elderly who depend on Social Security  for 84 percent of their annual income, and those in the next quintile dependent on Social Security for 83 percent of their income. At the beginning of 2012, the average Social Security benefit was $1,230 a month, or $14,740 a year. For 35 percent of elderly white beneficiaries, for 42 percent of Asian-Americans, for 49 percent of blacks, and for 55 percent of Hispanics, Social Security represents 90 percent or more of total income.   

Tragically, in the current debate over financing the cost of income support for older Americans, the chained C.P.I. proposal has more political support than the TRUE  progressive alternative of raising the current $113,700 payroll tax cap . Low-income Social Security beneficiaries are not equipped to absorb cuts in benefits that a switch to a chained consumer price index would entail; on the other hand, according to the centrist Tax Policy Center, raising the cap on income subject to the payroll tax could completely cover Social Security costs into the foreseeable future without reducing benefits.  

But do the entitled "liberal" brie munchers and chardonnay sippers in their gated communities want this? Hell no! These lily-livered rats would rather keep their lower taxes than make any real sacrifices for their lower wage, struggling, blue collar brethren! And then they have the nerve to wonder why so few Americans - barely one fifth - describe themselves as political liberals? Well, DUH! Because along with the Repukes who soiled the name, so have these MFs by their disdain and inaction for true liberalism.  

As NY Times columnist Thomas B. Edsall noted (‘New Liberalism’)”

“Obama’s victory and the growing evidence of an emerging majority Democratic coalition pose the danger that the left will take false comfort. The demographic forces currently powering the Democratic Party in no way guarantee a resilient coalition assured of a long-term competitive advantage.

In addition to the glaring class conflicts between the party’s upscale cultural liberals and the larger body of Democratic voters with pressing material needs, there are a host of potential fissures.

In cities from Los Angeles to Chicago to Houston, African-Americans are competing with Hispanics and others for government jobs, good schools, good neighborhoods, political power and basic resources. Republicans are looking toward these tensions to see how their party can capitalize on them"

Can the Repugs profit at Dem expense? Of course! If enough of the lower strata Dems see how the Gentrified bunch is screwing them over! Just watch and see in the coming months if a Chained CPI is really enacted under a nominal Dem administration or if Medicare age thresholds are increased. You will see the Reeps able to exploit it like a  pack of hyenas rips into defenseless prey.

The way to preserve and expand Dem victories? Upper income Dems must be part of the solution and not the problem. They must not show themselves as Neoliberal rats, who already have theirs, and deny (or cut) government support for their lower- income brethren.  They need to re-learn the lesson, seemingly lost, that in this age of vast corporate wealth and power the rest of us need gov't as a counter-lever now more than ever. IF the Dem party isn't prepared to embrace its own heritage (from FDR) and ensure that, they may reach the stage of the Whigs faster than the Repukes!